Inhibition of myostatin improves muscle atrophy in oculopharyngeal muscular dystrophy (OPMD).

BACKGROUND: Oculopharyngeal muscular dystrophy (OPMD) is a late-onset muscle disease affecting one per 80 000 of the general population characterized by profound dysphagia and ptosis, and limb weakness at later stages. Affected muscles are characterized by increased fibrosis and atrophy. Myostatin is a negative regulator of muscle mass, and inhibition of myostatin has been demonstrated to ameliorate symptoms in dystrophic muscles. METHODS: In this study, we performed a systemic delivery of a monoclonal antibody to immunologically block myostatin in the A17 mouse model of OPMD. The mice were administered a weekly dose of 10 mg/kg RK35 intraperitonially for 10 weeks, following which histological analyses were performed on the samples. RESULTS: This treatment significantly (P < 0.01) improved body mass (11%) and muscle mass (for the tibialis anterior and extensor digitorum longus by 19% and 41%) in the A17 mice treated with RK35 when compared to saline controls. Similarly, a significantly (P < 0.01) increased muscle strength (18% increase in maximal tetanic force) and myofibre diameter (17% and 44% for the tibialis anterior and extensor digitorum longus), and reduced expression of markers of muscle fibrosis (40% reduction in area of expression), was also observed. No change in the density of intranuclear inclusions (a hallmark of disease progression of OPMD) was however observed. CONCLUSIONS: Our study supports the clinical translation of such antibody-mediated inhibition of myostatin as a treatment of OPMD. This strategy has implications to be used as adjuvant therapies with gene therapy based approaches, or to stabilize the muscle prior to myoblast transplantation.

Analytical approaches for the detection of emerging therapeutics and non-approved drugs in human doping controls.

The number and diversity of potentially performance-enhancing substances is continuously growing, fueled by new pharmaceutical developments but also by the inventiveness and, at the same time, unscrupulousness of black-market (designer) drug producers and providers. In terms of sports drug testing, this situation necessitates reactive as well as proactive research and expansion of the analytical armamentarium to ensure timely, adequate, and comprehensive doping controls. This review summarizes literature published over the past 5 years on new drug entities, discontinued therapeutics, and 'tailored' compounds classified as doping agents according to the regulations of the World Anti-Doping Agency, with particular attention to analytical strategies enabling their detection in human blood or urine. Among these compounds, low- and high-molecular mass substances of peptidic (e.g. modified insulin-like growth factor-1, TB-500, hematide/peginesatide, growth hormone releasing peptides, AOD-9604, etc.) and non-peptidic (selective androgen receptor modulators, hypoxia-inducible factor stabilizers, siRNA, S-107 and ARM036/aladorian, etc.) as well as inorganic (cobalt) nature are considered and discussed in terms of specific requirements originating from physicochemical properties, concentration levels, metabolism, and their amenability for chromatographic-mass spectrometric or alternative detection methods.